chief discusses the magazine's position on a troubled countries around the world. later, the government accountability of us and how federal properties are managed to maintain. "washington journal ♪ \ host: "the washington post" reports that a speech will be made that democrats will let spending cuts take place unless they drop their position. starting today, romney's kevin will talk to president obama accusing him of being a phony -- president obama -- mitt romney's campaign will talk about how president obama is being a phony.

in 1996 there required those receiving welfare to receive benefits for only a limited time. the required recipients to eventually go to work. the current white house has proposed waivers tuesday to let them experience -- to experiment on how their programs operate. perhaps, some perspective on how your programs work. the number to call for our democrat line is 202-737-0001. the number to call for our republican line is 202-737-0002. the number to call for our independent line is 202-628- 0205. if you want to reach out to us on social media, you can on twitter. you can reach us as well. our e-mail is jornal@c-span.org

here is a headline. host: that is the "the washington post." this is david hill right thing.

host: here is the white house proposal of possibly changing their welfare program. that is our question to you as far as your thoughts on this. give us a call. the numbers start with a 202 area code.

the number to call for our democrat line is 202-737-0001. the number to call for our republican line is 202-737-0002. the number to call for our independent line is 202-628- 0205. facebook is where we have posted the question as well. about 17 or 18 people have responded this morning. if you want to give your thoughts, you can do so as well. jake thomas rights -- i believe in an government program weren't there should be an option to opt out. good morning. caller: i just want to say that any child who grew up in that program. i'd drop. i do believe there is a need for it. but i am against the welfare system. honestly, i think it enables people. it is like a crutch. the welfare to work program was an excellent attempt to try to get people off of welfare.

i believe it was abused. many people around me were on welfare with no alternative or motivation to get off. if it wanted to receive benefits, the head to at least attempt to work. i think we need more programs where we get people's ability to support themselves, compared to living in the government and system we have one place. host: 10 you tell me about your mother's experience? caller: absolutely. she was on a house a kid and all she did was stay home when i went to school. when she had to do the work program, she actually got a job. it was a part-time job. it eventually led to a full-time job. remove from the projects in at the seat to a town house off of north capitol. it was a much more of fluent neighborhood. i saw the progression.

i went to college and eventually grad school. i just saw the transition. i saw the pride she had. she had a sense of pride. it was a maintenance job in a hospital, but to her, it was like being the president of the country. if that program was not changed, she would have been accustomed to staying home, collecting it check. whenever you want a raise, you'd have another child. look, you have to do something or you do not get benefits. host: that is one of the ways you can reach out to us this morning, on the phones. facebook is a you can reach us as well. as well as twitter. again, one of the prospectus this morning.

a memo released late thursday allowing states to experiment on how they manage and work their welfare programs. this is on a republican line. go-ahead. >> yes. i'm a first-time caller. i just received my phone bill. it shows another welfare program. we are sick and tired of all the welfare programs that are going on. thank goodness we have a governor in florida and hopefully he will help us do something about it. >> what do you think about the proposal to let states change for maybe experiment with how they do their current welfare to work programs? caller: in favor of people getting a job instead of staying

home and watching tv. what i really wanted to tell you is this one thing. it shows seven different welfare programs. it says, if you receive assistance from any of the programs, you can save $13.50 a month. one of the once it is the temporary citizens for needy families, medicaid, the federal housing, or section b assistance, and security in come, food stamps, low income energy assistance program -- host: all of these shut upon your phone bill? caller: yes, they did.

host: all right. another attempt. here is the headline from "the washington post" take on it. did your thoughts on this potential changes are your experience on the state level. mississippi, larry, democrats line. caller: good morning. the program should be looked at to see if it is working. if there's any fraud in the program. if not, it should be kept. if it is, it should be fixed. it is that simple. thank you and have been as they. host: before you go, tell us about your states experiment. caller: i cannot speak about it because i have never been on it. i've been working since i was in the 10th green. host: here is a little bit more

from "the washington times." host: baltimore, maryland. democrat line. caller: good morning. as a democrat and someone who has been a recipient of the system, in a big believer of the should not be any waivers given. the single parent, specifically, participate in 20 hours of the work activity. because it has been expanded so much, why prevent someone from going to school?

you should not be preventing people to reform the system. . host: what does reform look like to you? caller: i feel like eligibility needs to be reformed in what is being counted in terms of income. right now, did not take into account that people have student debt. bank obligations, mortgages. things of that sort. this ticket growth. host: new jersey. kevin is next. caller: good morning.

i am an educator. i worked in an urban area. i feel like we have gotten off path of trying to provide for people for reasons of their own, and do not have the ability to make it. the way i was raised, in 50 years old. there we're all here to try to help each other. i just feel that a lot of the reform now is really mean- spirited. talking about people getting jobs. however, the unemployment rate in the african-american community is double of anything else. we want people to get the jobs, where they to get the jobs? for families, how do they survive in the world that is increasingly becoming more technologically created?

we're asking people to do things that our system is not capable right now of allowing people to do. we have to provide some assistance or ross the people who live in this nation will continue to find themselves falling further and further down. host: so, as far as allowing states to experiment with their program, what you think of that? caller: i think in states where people are concerned, it is great. i live in new jersey and our governor is not inclined to do that. i see a deteriorating of our public education system becoming more privatized. people are not finding that safety net. i think it depends on the state and the governor and the manner in which they deal with people.

host: the caller mentioned the jobs. it is the service sector that leeson job gains. they write -- host: wisconsin. and go ahead. caller: the welfare program in wisconsin, the minister of talks -- costs were more to the states. understandably, people lost their jobs that were done by

corrupt politicians to further their own gains. the reality is this. you can find it on youtube. over military, fbi, secret service, fbi. host: connecticut line. caller: like i said to the woman who chose to take my call, it is very upsetting. i worked three jobs. one of my jobs is the card. i am privy to the amount of money that is on that card.

december 2007. $500 a month in food. $500 a month in cash. the card may say something like, i feel warm in there with the man's car. i think, here i am working three jobs. here is a person who, i guess, apparently, cannot work because of the amount of children that have, they keep getting money. if i had $500 a month to spend on food and $500 a month cash side, i would not have to work one job. so, i am thinking, there has to be some kind of reform. where is the government getting the money. where are the getting the money to pay for all of this? it is frustrating to me.

there has to be some kind of work. the previous caller said, what they want to volunteer? to not put yourself in this position. if you want to volunteer, to yourself some kind of a job. any kind of a job. there is plenty of part-time out there. host: chris says, who was born to pay for this? the rich. when the money is done, the middle class. money does not grow on trees. the more the federal government gets involved, the worse it gets. on facebook, what is wrong with the flexibility for the states and individual needs? this was released on thursday. a reaction to it and thursdays on it in today's paper asking you about potential changes that could come in your states and

what you think about those changes. facebook, a twister, and e-mail available to you as well. this is steve on the republican line. caller: my theory is if we take things down to an level of local and give them the controls, this would be a consortium of public and private. there is too much skimming the going on at the state level that just represents an enormous hurdle to get by that. i say, just to a redesigned down to a level of local. this would empower the community to be more proactive. there would be more judgments.

i've been in the system since 2002 when a man tapped it ticked me off the island. i can redesign the system and it would be very simple to do. host: the georgia, you are up next. caller: i am tired of people messing with the poor people. how about the oil companies getting tax breaks? this is not make sense for people to call in. it is always the poor people. this guy, ted turner here in atlanta, he buys land at the city can get the money back for not growing food on the land. that is money that could be used for people who cannot help themselves. >> what you think about potential changes of welfare to work programs?

caller: if people can find jobs, that is fine. i think most people want a job. everyone thinks the people who are poor are just doing what they do because this is what they do. there are people who are really disabled. i see them every day. there are people hurting. i think the average people should stop attacking those people. host: mitt romney's tenure at bain capital is a conversation. president obama, he was on state of the union and the address is time for 1992 to 2002. [video clip] >> the story is that he was the sole shareholder of the company and took no interest in any of the decisions they made. they can make that case. if we know that the boston globe, bloomberg news, have

called the reporting that call these assertions into question. they could release the board, the could release the minutes from that time. other records that would show what his involvement was. we do know that he said he had no involved in any of the entities, yet he came back with the board meetings with a couple of those entities. the larger point is that he was in charge when he bought those firms whose principal mission was to facilitate off shoring. he's saying he left before they moved these jobs to china and mexico and he will not be responsible. herrmann -- harry truman had a plaque on his desk that said the buck stops here. mitt romney would have a plaque that says the buck stops there. he's going to have to explain that to the american people. host: president obama is an ohio where he will talk about his

efforts to help the auto industry through bailout. the campaign talks about mr. romney and what he plans to do. this is a coordinated offensive starting today. the president has been a typical politician. host: mr. romney also have representatives. he talked about his time at the bank. [video clip] >> it was not part time. at the olympics was in a shambles. there was corruption. they're going to pull it. it would have been a huge

embarrassment. he was called on a to do it. he retired retroactively to february of 1999 as a result. democratic members of spain ran for the senate nomination. he said that he was not there and engaged in the day to day activities. the former chairman said it was standard procedure for someone who still has the shares to sign the form, even if they're not making the day to day decisions and have taken a leave of absence. host: there are three stories today focusing on one man. all of the story's reference him as a possible vice president pick for mitt romney. it goes on to say that he will not discuss speculation last week.

he added, we're not commenting about the vp process. they declined to comment whether he is under consideration. we have been talking about the proposal from the white house to let the states experiment with their welfare to work program. al is on our republican line. go ahead. caller: they made a mistake. i am an independent. i get up every morning and watched this show. in a minister. i look at this every morning and i say, everybody knows what is right. let us know what is right.

one of the young man who was on earlier made a comment about who is getting what. even here, the people who are in charge, everyone. everyone maneuvers for whatever they can get. people do things and maneuver for the best position to get what they can get for themselves. even if you have a profit that is been on the ground for 10 years, the reason why it will not get off the ground is because those that are in charge will bail to make sure before they go forward. host: how does that refer to welfare to work programs?

caller: i was a young man coming out. if it was not for welfare, i do not think i would be a 25 year retired veteran today because the system did help us. it helped us get up and give us an opportunity so i could be where i'm at right now. host: so, about these potential reforms, what do you think? caller: this they do that, they cannot just do it. you have to be very careful how you do it. you can do a lot of things. you let the people that are so- called on welfare go in and take the jobs of the working people. if you have a four year degree in your try to get a job but they're going to put somebody else in there, or might cause you not to get as many hours as

he normally would get and then you end up with a 20 hour work week because europe participants of people better on and taken of those hours, it will cause them problems. it doesn't matter which way they do it. host: on twitter. iowa, you are next. this is kirkland? i am sorry, brian. go ahead. caller: i just had a quick comment. -- tooy don't know to go

much about the welfare program or what it entails, but i've a friend who is a really bright guy. unfortunately, when he went to work when he was 18, he moved from chicago to california. he got in a car accident. it was not his fault. when he came home, he recuperated for one year and went right back to work and moved back to california. but he received a bad head injury in the accident. a few months after he went back to work, he came down with a mental illness. they think it may have been related to the head injury he took. regardless, he is a bright guy. you would not know him to be disabled as by looking at him. but he is disabled. people on the program to not get very much money. they give us $750 to live on.

that is before paying rent in any of your bills and paying for food. i know he gets food stamps and he only gets about $50 or $60 a month for food stamps. that is about one trip to the store. so, maybe some people do not need welfare, but some people do. that is pretty much all i have to say. host: maryland, democrats line. caller: i do not believe there's anything wrong with welfare reform. when you reform it, there will obviously be a lot of savings. i look at that in the short- term. in the long-term, for our country, if we're not really to put everything on the table from welfare reform to reforming the tax code to discretionary spending, if we cannot put everything on the table and ask

all americans to sacrifice and do what is best for the country, we will never get anywhere. the money we save their, wields as figure out a way to cut taxes and give someone who doesn't need a tax cut. i think it is good, and the country could benefit as a whole. but i think for the long-term, we have to put everything on the table if we're going to get our country back and get it right. it is not about just what happens now. politicians to think about saving things for people who vote for them and not doing what is best for the entire country. welfare reform will only hurt or may benefit the people on the welfare, but that doesn't do anything for the whole country. and our country is in trouble right now.

host: and op-ed in "the wallstreet journal."

host: carroll on the independent line. caller: i am concerned about some people calling in and saying that the government is really harsh on the port. i do not believe the government is harsh on the port because the american people, the american government will take care of poor people. never will this government failed to take care of the truly needy people. i think poor people need to stop calling in and thinking the government will not take care of them if they are truly poor. however, we do have a lot of a fraud going on when programs, for the port. we have people who do not qualify cashing in on these programs.

in a retired teacher -- i know a retired teacher who has a cell phone who has a phone of her own and has one of these 200 minute cellular phones. a lot of these people with the cellular phones have phones better than the government and until more minutes. that is a big and fraud given to these telephones. they are out there in many people's hands to do not deserve them. host: in your experience, what do you think has to be looked into? caller: a lot of fraud. also, i have something else to say. i believe mitt romney will be an excellent president. i think he will come before the american people with just enough.

not too much. i think a lot of people want him to be like chris christie. i think we ought to let mitt romney keep his own personality because he is not a person who will read and raved before the american people. he has told us everything we need to know, but it is hard for us to listen because we're listening for raving. host: thank you. this is from "the washington post" piece. last column writes a little bet.

host: that is from the letter. illinois, democrats line. caller: i know firsthand and i have seen it firsthand because i've volunteered at a mission one month. all i will say here is in the early since 1970's. he had crack on his hands. this man worked hard all of his life. he told me he only got $12 a month in food stamps. and then i had other clients

getting $600 a month and they're getting rewarded for having children. i thought, there is something wrong with this system. it was a history lesson worth the elderly or the old people serve your purpose and then your forgotten. the state is so broke and there is so much fraud that goes on in the welfare system. spending your food stamps. we saw when katrina happened. host: when you hear about potential changes, what goes through your mind? caller: i think it is a good idea because welfare is not a way to live your life, just like

unemployment. it should be distributed to those and used for those, and the elderly and disabled folks who are trying to better themselves, just like unemployment. unemployment is not a way to live the rest of your life. again, correct me if i'm wrong, is the food stamp program a government-run agency? so, you have to look at it, like the caller said earlier, a lot of fraud. host: we need jobs the first. jacksonville, fla., you are next. caller: thank you.

the last to callers have made excellent points. the reason i call is island back to college when i was in my late 30's. i was working full time. i had three children. i put myself through college. i did not have food stamps. i did not ask the government for any help. i got myself a college education. frankly, i think the government is making a huge mistake. paying women to have children. the more children they have, they are allowed to stay home with the money they make. there was a survey that asked women who were getting welfare if they cannot get welfare for additional children, would they stop at one? and they said yes. the government knows this. the fraud in the government is

beyond belief. i appreciate the last comments of the last two callers. thank you very much. host: "the wallstreet journal" taking a look at surveillance tools.

host: georgia, thank you for holding on. american citizens are so uninformed and mean spirited. you are all frightening me to death. what yourunderstand taxes pay for? you want to put it all into

military and give it to people like mitt romney and his rich friends? what are you doing? what are you doing, people? host: florida, democrats line. caller: there is nothing in their bets as the states can do that. it is to look at parts of the program that are not working. that is what is this claimed is state rights. when you give it to them, people have all these problems. most of these people do not know anything about food stamps or welfare. it does depend on as much money as you can make. that has been taken out. the whole purpose of the program is to try to improve its that as

of the government is supposed to do and that is what people should want to do. these people nothing about what they're talking about. thank you. host: the front page of the financial times features a story about china. the threat that china will cut taxes on profits they take up to 50% after rules were relaxed. also, the story goes on to say that the relaxation of the rules comes after one year of consultation between chinese tax authorities, tax experts and companies to make a much simpler and quicker because withholding taxes, depending on the owners country of residence. democrat line, hello. caller: yes. i was thinking that the welfare

to work idea is a great deal. however, the town that i work in, it is hard for them to find businesses to cooperate with the business -- with the welfare office. i talked to several people who are frustrated because the canada works through. host: what is it called in your state? caller: cal works. they cannot give any of the businesses to cooperate. the thing that is why it does not work here. host: california was one of the letters sent to the government interested in changing the program. caller: i think that would be great. i see women with children. they cannot find work but they're looking.

there was a gentleman earlier who said that people spend their welfare money on clothes and some other stuff. i used to think that, too. but i notice now that these welfare cards are like a credit card. the cash and the food are loaded onto one card. that is why you see people buying things other than food. host: on the front page of "the washington post."

host: michigan, your the last call on the topic. caller: i have a couple of comments. that food stamp thing, i have been out of work for over three years. i was on food stamps for maybe six months. and then i got a part-time job working one or two days a week making $8 an hour. i got off of food stamps but i get food from a church once every two weeks. that is barack obama and his establishment tried to take away the program and all of that. they do not have the right to do that. if it's been passed into law by clinton. he cannot just change anything

he wants. you should check his medical records to make sure he doesn't have a birthmark of 666 on him. host: coming up next, we'll be joined by david brody. curative book called "the teavangelicals." -- he wrote a book called "the teavangelicals." we will take a look at the states that are listed across the world and talk about why they are described as the failed states. we will have those discussions when we come back.

>> it is personalized internet radio. >> panasonic has a wide range of products. >> you take plastic, run it through a heater, and a layer by layer. >> a look at the latest in technology and devices from the consumer electronics association fair on capitol hill. tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicator's" on c-span2. >> there has been a hostility toward poverty. lyndon johnson was the best president who look at poverty issues. he spent money on it and talked about the social services program. richard nixon is actually the father of minority business development. inside his minority business

established the small business association. he used the term economic justice. richard nixon. economic justice. >> the former president regularly writes comments on politics and african american economic history. on august 5 at noon eastern, your questions, comments, calls, and tweets. in depth, august. on c-span2's booktv. "washington journal" continues. host: our next guest current a job is working for the news. how the party is taking back america. tell us a little bit about the teavangelicals as a term.

how did you come up with that? caller: i noticed they were praying at the beginning of these rallies. in some there were some prayer circles. i said i should do some interviews. i did, and many of them were conservative christians. that bore that out. surveys say it is even higher. they're actually conservative christians. i needed a name for it. i thought maybe tea party christians, so that was boring. i went with the teavangelicals because they are breaking bread with these libertarians. host: the definition you put up there for them. a conservative christian who strongly supports the tea party agenda or is active in the tea party movement. is this a relatively new

phenomenon? guest: with libertarians, it is new. that is for sure. now, we are seeing fiscal issues take paramount importance here during this time in the country's history. clearly, this is a big part of why they are breaking bread with these libertarians. host: if it is the fiscal issues, does that mean social issues have taken a back seat? guest: not at all. that does not mean they want to stop the social issues. bake until just as strongly about the abortion issue, but there will take that ball and play elsewhere. they're not bringing it into the tea party rallies. 60% of tea parties are considered socially conservative. the of all of these conservative

christians and social conservatives in the movement. the was the two-party done? they adhere to a very strict fiscal discipline, if you will. host: the t party enjoyed strength in previous years. what does it give to the party as far as their ability to influence even more so in this coming election? guest: here is the bottom line and truth. libertarians can not make a difference by themselves. conversely, conservative christians cannot do it all by themselves as well. clearly, you take them out. if you rapture them out of the tea party, you are left with less than half of a movement.

host: as far as describing them as a group, how would you define evangelical? guest: there are well known for their influence in the community and a lot of their service. someone who believes in the bible and that every word is true that of this resource with the belief in jesus christ as your personal savior. there is some fine-tuning after that. host: david brody is our guest. if you want to ask him questions about his books or maybe religious voters and politics, here is how you can do so. the number to call for our democrat line is 202-737-0001. the number to call for our republican line is 202-737-0002. the number to call for our independent line is 202-628- 0205. you can also send us a tweet or

an e-mail. if you had to say, as far as teavangelical is concerned, who could to give as an example? guest: quite a few. a sara palin would definitely be one. the of their strengths and weaknesses, for sure. mike huckabee is out there. allen west is one. there's also marco rubio as well. a lot of people say, marco rubio, his catholic. that is right. you can be won. rick santorum is one, but he is also a roman catholic. people sometimes get confused. we want to make sure we're talking about conservative christians.

host: how are they looking at mitt romney? guest: they're not that enamored with him. let's be honest here. having said that, this isn't some much about mitt romney at this point. it is all about president obama. how did they see mitt romney? they are somewhat skeptical, but realize this is their best shot and only realistic shot at taking this president out of office. host: part typically about his mormon ism? guest: about 50%. having said that, not the stereotype folks around the country, but if you look to graphically, you'd think that more of the anti-mormon sentiment would be in that southern part of the united states. states that romney will win it anyhow. if you look at it within a swing state battle, it probably will

not be that big of a battle. host: twitt"the teavangelicals." you're on. caller: this teavangelical thing is constantly pushing to force their religion on me. it is my choice not to participate in religion, and yet you are trying to shed your series of abortion on me and creationism on me. i will not have that. everyone of those people you have mentioned lacks spiritual substance and are more interested in convincing me they are right rather than their spiritual salvation. guest: and the sentiment out

there. unfortunate, no disrespect, if you actually go to tea party rallies, it is not necessarily about making it this christian nation and everybody needs to just go under this one banner. look. they feel very strongly about their judeo-christian principles, but it does not mean it will start forcing their faith. the committee principled without being obnoxious. that is more of the sentiment that i experienced for sure. host: 10 you connect where someone would find a judeo- christian principle in tax policy? guest: we talk about tax policy

in the book. they will use bible versus to make their case. evangelicals will use bible versus, too. in the bible and in the psalms, it? but a person with their children's children. in lieu of the talks but if you build a tower, when you first estimate the cost of the tower in the first place? in the bible, they see a good tax policy as it relates. does not mean they do not want to pay their taxes. they believe in that, for sure. at the same time, they believe that lower taxes means more money that a family can choose to spend rather than the government. host: north carolina, jim. the republican line. go-ahead.

caller: this sounds a little ragged. i hope you can hear me. the tea party deal, if i understand their primary concern, one of their founding principles was that government is much too big. well, let's stick to federal here. the talk about principle been principal without being obnoxious. if i have an arrogant said of principles such as, it is too big, it has to get smaller, and of the primary problems as medicare and that type, and i will ally myself with the tea party movement, that i have to cut my medicare card up and mail messages security back in every month to be sure to my principles without being obnoxious, don't die? guest: well, i am somewhat

following the argument there. i think he makes an important point about government getting too big. a lot of these teavangelicals things that god is getting smaller and the public arena. this is a big reason why teavangelicals have joined the tea party. this is not just about president obama. this really started under the big government programs under president bush. tarp, the bailout, all of that. they believe that this is part of a spiritual awakening in this country, kind of akin to the great awakening. they believe this and see it manifesting itself in the tea party movement. currently, maverick off of twitter ask this. he cites the example that sara palin claims to be at a tea

party patriot. can't be both? guest: i assume he is talking about the organization t party patriots. what is interesting and we point out in the book is that she is very good friends with ralph reed who heads up the freedom coalition which is also its evangelical organization. they do events together. amy kramer is in constant contact with concerned women for america. the web is connected in all different ways. it does not mean it is organized specifically like that, but it is loosely organized from the relationship respective. host: alexandria, virginia. good morning to john on our independent line. caller: hi.

i want to ask if his theory is the tea party is primarily evangelicals? why is it almost all the money from the tea party is going through grover norquist from the koch brothers and other wealthy investors? while they say christian kings, their focus is primarily on reducing taxes and limiting the effectiveness of government. they have to destroy an it in order to make government ineffective. how does that represent any type of christian values? guest: this is a bottom up movement. yes, there is tea party money floating around with the koch brothers. but this is a bottom-up movement. the movement is so organic in nature that the belief system of

the tea party comes from not so much the koch brothers and the money and all that, it comes from the ground up. you cannot stop that. if the koch brothers or anyone else tries to become a tea party master, it would not work. it's not so much about the money. the money is not what is driving the movement. it's the people driving the movement. many of them are evangelicals. they will have the final say on what is going on. donna on twitter says -- talking about libertarians, they talk about a return to constitutionally limited government. teavangelicals call it something different, a return to judeo- christian principles, but it's

the same thing. people say what does that mean? it means district restriction as to view of the way the founding fathers intended this company to be -- a restructionist view. host: there is talk in the paper about the louisiana governor bobby jindal possibly becoming a vice presidential candidate for mitt romney. does bobby jindal captured things evangelicals light? guest: the would be a wonderful teavangelical pick. even among evangelical leaders. they love bobby jindal. but whether or not he is ready for prime time nationally, that is separate. but in terms of his public policy work and the idea that he converted to catholicism from hinduism and has been a

champio -- champion in the pro-life community, he is in the tier "a." tim pawlenty would be another choice that would excite some. he is a born-again christian who does not talk about it as much, but he is. that would play well. he has also developed street spread within the in the -- developed street credibility within the evangelical community. there is governor bob mcdonnell. and a couple others. marco rubio would be fine, but there are national readiness issues. they love mike huckabee, but that's maybe tier b. host: what about condoleezza rice > guest: mitt romney has promised

to make the vice-presidential choice a pro-life person. condoleezza rice is pro-choice. that would be a broken promise within the evangelical community. host: dallas tx, emma on the democratic line. caller: i am curious who they are talking about taking the country back from. they took it from the indians and brought the slaves over to build the country and brought in the mexicans for cheap labor. guest: that's a great question. i was on a program with tavis smiley almost two years ago. i remember him asking me that same question. i said it's not about who they are trying to take it from. it's where they are trying to

take it to. they are trying to take it back to the founding of the country the way they interpret it, the way the founding fathers interpreted the founding of this country with a belief in the almighty god and return to lower or rather limited government. is about. what this this evangelicals are not out to make this a christian nation and they are not trying to convince everybody to be christian. there were so many teavangelical folks out there and i found the stories to be great. this book is littered with personal stories. one of them about a tea party libertarian who was the head of the new york city tea party patriots. was a libertarian and wanted

nothing with god and started to go to one of the tea party meetings with a lot of other tea party groups in florida. there was a big segregation of folks. some of those departed leaders started witnessing to him about the gospel at one of those tea party meetings. three months later he ended up introducing his wife to jesus christ. he became a teavangelical. it was interesting because he was witnessed to with the gospel of jesus christ within a tea party setting with other tea party leaders, which i thought was interesting. there's a lot of stories like that. host: bob is on the republican line. you are on with david brody. caller: thank you. i very much appreciate your take on this. i have been a member of the tea party quite some time.

not that i go to attend meetings, but i have it in my heart. i get on facebook and i share a lot with people. i believe in the foundation of our country. i believe in the founders and the way they believed. they were not takers. they were helpers'. they have strong moral character. you would rarely see -- i talked to people in the tea party on facebook. you do not see the viciousness that i hear so much on c-span and the morning from different groups -- it is republicans, democrats, and independents. it makes me sad. we really want this country to get back to being on their own two feet and working together.

your take in your book, i very much appreciate that. but i am not a religious person, so to speak. guest: he mentioned the idea about the viciousness and a lot of people thinking the tea party is vicious and a lot of other names. i brought on the upper west side of new york city. i read the new york times every day. i grew up in a liberal bastion of new york as a jewish guy. when you read the new york times every day and when you go and pretty much have a corridor that is new york and washington, you really get a much different perspective on a world than when you actually travel around this country. that is exactly what i did for this book. when you travel around the country, you find out the tea

party is not vicious at all. i am not saying they're not pockets in terms of certain knuckleheads so show up at rallies, but there are knuckleheads all across the country in all different movements. but the vast majority of the tea party is not vicious. they are god-fearing and got loving americans. host: how his money doing in reaching out to evangelical leaders? guest: i just saw an article within the last couple weeks. there's his campaign in front of the camera and another behind the camera. there's been a lot of reaching out behind the camera as it relates to mitt romney and his team. one of his senior advisers is talking to all these type of leaders on a daily or weekly basis. we know that requiring and mitt romney have spoken a couple times in the last couple weeks. -- rick warren and mitt romney. in 2006 mitt romney was courting

evangelical leaders. there's a fascinating story about how he had jerry falwell and a lot of others hosting & a which is in his living room in 2006. a month later they all got a package in the mail and it was a huge chair and on the back was a plaque that said you will always have exceeded my table. he's been doing that since 2006. there is a behind-the-scenes courting of evangelical leaders. in front of the camera, the romney campaign picks and chooses when they won him to show at family events. host: in spoke about romney before the naacp last weekend your reference to a certain section of the speech that he talked about some potential problems when it comes to religious leaders. i want to play that section. [video clip] >> with 90% of african-americans who typically vote for

democrats, some wonder why a republican would bother to campaign in the african-american community and to address the naacp. one reason is i hope to represent all americans of every race, creed, and sexual orientation. from the poorest to the riches and everyone in between. host: what did you find in that phrase? guest: he was about seven seconds too long in the teavangelical world, when he mentions sexual orientation. race and creed, he could've stopped there, but he went to sexual orientation. this has been a democrat and liberal playbook for some time, which is to include sexual orientation as a class. if that is what he did right there. he is using the language of the liberal playbook. that is something but does not go over well with teavangelicals because this is what they have been fighting against for

decades, the idea of classifying sexual orientation from the statutes and point within the federal government language. host: even as part of an oval and desire by some to see president obama out of office in the religious community -- an overwhelming desire? guest: when money used this language, it goes to a trust issuing and whether they can trust him on social issues. most of them will vote for him for his economics. the question is, it's all about trust and social issues. if it is romney all the way there with evangelical voters? he is about 80% there. president obama did a great job in helping romney get there. host: arlington, texas, independent line, deon.

caller: hi. as someone who grew up in church, i often found this whole movement of trying to inject jesus christ and religion into politics, i have often found it disgusting. first of all, when it comes to god's word, both parties fall short. i think we should kill this whole notion that somehow if you vote republican, you are voting with god and all this kind of stuff. basically, what you all have done is create your own false religion. just vote for who you want to vote for, but quit -- and less jesus christ is running, you cannot vote your faith. second, the tea party and when

i talk to my older relatives, it is the white separatist movement, the same old white citizens council, states' rights, things from the past, from the 1960's that they see. as far as supporting mitt romney, why would you support someone -- jesus said if anybody comes with another revelation, you reject them. host: we gave our guest plenty to talk about. guest: let's start with the racism part of his equation. this is addressed in my book. the tea party is not racist, but i explain exactly some of the concerns people have. look, he mentioned white supremacist movement. if the tea party was racist and all, would allen west be a

hero and herman cain? that is one thing to think about. as for faith and the republican party, if 10 evangelicals on the street, people within the tea party movement, they will have something pretty negative to say about republicans. it's about anti-incumbency. it's not about republican or democrat. they do aligned more with republicans, but that's not the issue. if they are tired of republicans and democrats and the way washington works. that's the overriding issue. as for how faith fits into the equation, there are biblical absolutes of in the way teavangelicals see the world. is there something wrong with pushing your belief on someone else when they have heard enough?

absolutely. you need to be able to back off. that does not mean you cannot be principled or have your believes as it relates to the bible. host: st. louis, missouri, denise is on our democratic line. caller: hi. i want to comment about jesus and the evangelicals. jesus said, "i was hungry and you fed me. i was naked and you close to me. i was in prison and you visited me. they said, lord, when did we do these things? he said, if you have done it to the least of them, you have done it to me." as far as you christians are concerned, jesus said "vendor "note to god" app what is for god. -- he said, "render to god

what is for god." guest: i have heard this before. do evangelicals believe about taking care of others in this world and in this country? absolutely. here's the difference. they don't want the federal government necessarily taking over, because they believe that churches and individuals need to help other individuals, the community, everybody coming together. evangelicals are the most generous when it comes to charitable giving in the country. so this is not about them not fulfilling or trying to live out what the bible commands. that's not what this is about.

this is about whether or not the federal government has the actual right or reasoning to actually make that argument and go ahead and have the federal government replace god or replace someone else's personal charitable giving. that does not mean they don't want some sort of social safety net. if you look in the numbers, there are folks who understand there's a need for social safety net. but where do we go exactly with this when we are spiraling out of control? host: what about the recent decision on the supreme court on health care? the need for social safety net and people's perception on whether it is needed or not especially among evangelicals? guest: as it relates to the teavangelicals, they are very much concerned about what obamacare will do to the country, so they don't see it as a social safety net issue.

the obama administration disagrees. but they see it much as government intrusion. they are seeing something much different in obamacare than what others might think it's a social safety net and expansion of medicaid. host: 4 day on our independent line. -- from a florida on our lvin.endent line is an oft caller: we think allen west is crazy. some of the stuff from our forefathers should be writtrewr. we are debating. we drive different cars. we don't drive the cars that our

forefathers had. problem telling people with our defense budget. but helping the needy is where we should be. that's what the bible proclaims. these teavangelicals should be able to see that what they call obamacare is helping this country. guest: i have to tell you, one of the things that we address in the book has to do with paul ryan's budget and the moral implications on the positive and negative side. teavangelicals believe it is a moral thing to do that if you know you are headed off a cliff, let people know that it's coming and we need to make cuts. look what's going on in spain. drastic cuts need to happen right away because nothing was done in the past. paul ryan and other and

teavangelicals make that argument, that it's the most moral, compassionate thing to do to let people know we may be cutting your benefits drastically in the next five, 10, 15 years, so we are going to insist on a little so that we can ease you into that rather than drop you off a cliff. there is moral reasoning behind what teavangelicals believes. host: this on twitter -- guest: bears the federal government -- there is the federal government slash bureaucracy. with bureaucracy you get a a sense that when there is too many hands of the cookie jar, the way teavangelicals sees the world, people are sinful and fallible. when you have a federal government that a lot of people think is not all that great and

somewhat sinful and fallible, that the last thing you wanted the federal government controlling everything. host: david brody is our guest. atlanta, georgia, and william of the democratic line. caller: hi. you talk about being strict on the constitution. we had that before. people used the bible to proclaim that it was right to have slaves. if you want to get back to what they were thinking, that is what they were thinking. we know that is not what jesus was talking about. and we know that everything you are saying is anti-jesus or anti-christ. you might want to look in the just might who you be. guest: i checked myself in the mirror all the time. i don't know how to respond.

it is unfortunate that someone wants to judge either myself or others. this is what happens with teavangelicals and with evangelicals. they proclaim that jesus christ as lord and the only way to have an. they are somehow ridiculed because of that belief. they see it as heartfelt and and they see it as compassionate as a loving act to tell people about jesus and unfortunate that it is interpreted like that. if there is the responsibility of christians to explain their views not just on public policy but also on their belief in jesus christ and to do it in a way that is not necessarily offensive. remember, the gospel is offensive, because jesus christ required people to make a choice. host: anthony asks -- guest: they are not a big fan of

it either. there is overlap between occupy wall street movement and the teavangelicals or the tea party. there's some of that. they have problems with corporate greed, but there's also an issue. they believe in free markets. in terms of corporate greed, they do have a problem it, but there's a larger picture when it comes to free-market capitalism and letting free markets work as they will. host: carlo as on our independent line from chicago. caller: i have a comment and then a question. how are you? guest: good, thanks. caller: you said teavangelicals are trying to return the country back to our forefathers, the

judeo-christian beliefs. as an african-american, and i have learned, like the guy that call from georgia that said people have used the bible to enslave my ancestors in building this country. also, one of our forefathers was thomas jefferson, who has studied from the cquran. what about the jews and muslims that live here if you are trying to return the country to the judeo-christian tradition? guest: i did not get his name h. host: carlo. guest: any person who called themselves the question and has no problem with slavery, they

might want to rethink that. if it's unfortunate that people claim they are christian when they are racist. it is extremely unfortunate and very despicable. host: long island, new york, joanne on our republican line. caller: good morning. i took offense at the previous caller who wasaid that this gentleman was using religion to further his cause and not in a good way. it is done all the time. the rev. al sharpton and the rev. jesse jackson when jesse jackson counselled bill clinton on his infidelity and it turned out that he has a child out of wedlock of his own. i want to give the guys some

support. host: that was joined from long island. guest: i would just say that i think joanne makes a broader point or i would like to draw a broader point from which is saying. when the teavangelicals come together under the tea party banner, it's very important -- they're not checking their faith at the door, but at the same time they care about the constitutionally limited government of this country, where they want to return this country to. the two are not mentally exclusive. you can be a faith-loving teavangelical christian, care deeply about this country and walk and chew gum at the same time. all of these conspiracy theories and if everybody has -- we think the teavangelicals ahave some sort of agenda, i would suggest they go to ohio or

florida and look at the tea party rallies and many other states. actually look at what is there. then report back in a year. host: connie on the democratic line. caller: hi. you said that charities should be the ones to feed the hungry people. we have about 46 million of them. you tell that to children in west virginia counties where there is no charity. a lot of rural areas there's no place to go for charity. there's no churches. they are just as poor as the people who live there. so they depend on the government to get food stamps. if you are a christian, why would you want to cut food stamps for hungry children? this is exactly what the paul

ryan deal does. by now with so many people are out of jobs they want to cut food stamps. guest: it is unfortunate that people think teavangelicals wants to cut food stamps 400 children. they see it as a partnership between charities, between local charities with the community, within churches come within the broader evangelical community, and much broader than just the evangelical community to help out there fellowman. does that mean the federal government has no responsibility or does not take part in all this? what we areot saying. they believe in a social safety net. the question is how big exactly and what about expansion of this? and how much it should be expanded? and whether or not that is the role of the federal government. so this is about the role of the federal government. it's not about trying to tell folks that we want to keep children hungry in america.

it's unfortunate that some people feel that way. but the good news is we have a book that explains it. host: david broder wrote the book. he's also the chief political correspondent for christian broadcasting network news. thank you. coming up we will talk with susan glasser, of foreign policy magazine. they have their annual failed states issue. we will look at the findings. and the federal government grants 400,000 buildings and properties. we will talk about that coming up. first an update from c-span radio. >> an update on the situation in syria. the report violence in the streets of damascus is the heaviest since the uprising against president bashar al- assad began last march. the report comes shortly after the international red cross officials declared the syrian conflict a civil war. we will learn more about syria

and noon today, when the woodrow wilson center hosts a forum on the conflict. live coverage on c-span radio or you can watch on c-span. turning to the presidential election, candidate mitt romney speaking earlier today on fox news channel said that president obama's attacks on his business record at bain capital are "misdirected. and" he added, "i would say to the present, would not be interesting, mr. president, if you spent time speaking about your record?" he plans to raise money with fellow republican louisiana governor bobby jindal, a possible running mate. president obama addresses ohio voters later today, of planning to tell them mitt romney's tax proposals would spur job growth in foreign countries including china. the president plans to highlight his administration's bailout of the automotive industry. c-span is covering the event. you can hear that later in our program scheduled. those are the latest headlines on c-span radio.

>> it is personalize internet radio. >> panasonic actually has a very wide range -- wide array of products. >> a computer-controlled hot glue gun. you run it through a heater. >> a look at the latest in technology and technology devices from the consumer electronics association technology fair on capitol hill. that's tonight at 8:00 eastern span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: the latest issue deals with the annual failed states index. susan glass and joins us to talk about it. -- susan glasser. what is a failed state? guest: we look at the

consequences of state's failure and we rank the countries every year along with our partners at the fund for peace. you would not be surprised to learn its things like political instability, loss of human capital, that is people running away from the country, the consequences of repression, all those things make up a failed state. host: as far as readers of your magazine, why is it important to list these and what information do you want them to get from this list? guest: indexes are fraud. everybody wants to know should they not be number one in this case or what makes up the numbers. the truth is it is an important exercise because it crystallizes debate and discussion on what we are doing or not doing in the case of these failed states to look at this as a systemic problem. the publication of this list over the last eight years has done a lot to help from the conversation in washington and

in other capitals around the question of what is a failed state and should be looked at it as a policy thing, is it a national security issue that we have failed states? and what are the regional consequences? 17 of the top 25 states on this year's index at the top are in africa. you have to pull back and look at what are we not doing? what are we not? ? are we really focusing on the world's biggest problem? host: there is a map on the web site which highlights some of their findings and relates it to what they discovered. why is there such a confrontatio -- concentration in africa? guest: many different reasons historically. one thing is why is it that the world spends a di disproportionate amount of time not thinking about the consequences of failure in these countries.

somalia is once again number one on this list. it has been number one virtually the entire time we have had this index over the last eight years. in six of the 12 indicators that are used, replaces number one. all the countries in the world. you are talking about poverty and economic decline. deputies. public-service is. legitimacy of the state. human rights. security forces. all those areas, it's the worst country the world. for three decades it is a country that has been without a functioning national government. the world intervenes in a way that does not do much to solve the situation and may be prolonging it. host: also on the top five, the congo, sudan, chad, and zimbabwe. there was a story about sedan and current activities. how does that relate to us in

how we do for policy and u.s.? guest: people may think this is so far away that is not relevant to us. but the truth is it does matter. sudan is a great example. one candidate to be high on the list for next year will be the new independent recollection country of south sudan, which by the way the u.s. along with its partners in the western world supported the creation of and yet what has happened, it is a very unsuccessful new country. there's an imminent prospect of full-scale war. low-skilled war has already broken out for months since the official independence of south sudan. it's a good example where u.s. policy makes a difference. host: you can ask our guest about her findings and the magazine findings. you can call.

or send us an e-mail. you can also send us a tweet. the bottom five of the top 10 starts with zimbabwe. we did zimbabwe. it's against an, haiti, yemen, iraq, the central african republic. -- it is afghanistan. guest: the continuation of conflict has led to a dramatic increase in their place on the failed states index. afghanistan has gone up in the last years on the index. it is a reflection of the fact that political instability and armed conflict are the two surest ways to make your country unstable in a way that lands you higher up on the failed states index. that is true of the country's of the arab spring. last year's index was the first

that started the effects of the arab spring on this particular index. what it shows is on the one hand, you know the dramatic scenes of freedom and free speech in countries like egypt that had not had it. on the other hand, a dramatic increase in political instability and civil and sectarian strife in the country. all the countries of the arab spring, that went much higher on the list. host: where do you get the information? guest: we work with our partners at the front for peace, who have assembled the index over the last eight years. they assess thousands of documents and they look at 177 countries in the world. we publish in the print magazine the top 60 or i should say the bottom 60, however you look at it. using 12 different indicators, ways of looking at slicing and dicing the data. host: we will show you parts of the list. you can look for yourself at the foreign-policy web site. there's an interactive map

that their web site. policy.com.gn caller: what is interesting about iraq is that we initially supported sadaam hussein and reagan met with one of the representatives of the white house. we invaded and we took out a vital part of iraq. sadaam hussein did the same thing. had it not been for the failed mistakes of u.s. policy during the cold war towards the soviet union and iraq, you probably never would have had all these failed states. central lab and republic,

angola, condo, they were all part of the cold war. -- the central african republic, angola, the condo. my first question, susan, would be about what is your take on the fact that we took out a major -- of iraq? guest: i think the caller has made important points. the role of history and legacy of history did not start in 1945 with the advent of the cold war. when you look at the 17 african countries on the list, you can go back even farther and history and look at the colonial legacy, which is something those countries are still sorting through, the british, the french and the cas -- and in

the case of the libya, the italians, leaving a lack of institutions and lack of independent, self-sustaining nature. the cold war competition between the u.s. and the soviet union in many of these countries is something that affects their status today. he spoke about iraq. one of the things that's hard for me as you look at the list, the artificial stability of dictatorships often shows up in the sense that you will have certain dictatorships will not be as high up on the list as countries that are perhaps more free in terms of what a person can do and say, but they are more plagued by violence and civil unrest. that's a common thing we encounter on the failed states index. that is a reason why in arab

spring we saw a country like egypt or libya skyrocketing up the list of failed states even though on one hand there was a step forward for freedom in those countries because they got rid of tyrannical dictators. on the other hand, the artificial stability of the dictatorship is gone. it's irrelevant if you are talking about iraq under sadaam hussein. i covered the u.s. invasion of iraq and i spent my time running around in the immediate days of the battle and spoke with people who had suffered extraordinarily. this is the shi'ite part of iraq and the consequence for them was an increase in instability and violence, which is something iraq is still dealing with a decade later. it's not like the folks were happy with the stability of sadaam hussein's regime. it is something there were

forced to live with. there were secret prisons and thousands dead and there was torture. caller: a lot of the failed states was a result of the u.n. not doing its job. there should be a division that shows developing countries how to get a fair economic deal. in niger the french are the owners of 62% of the uranium. in other countries there are foreigners who own raw materials. they put in outside forces to protect those. those if the united nations had an educational way to show the failed states how to get a western type deal for their raw materials and how to distribute them, there would be less wars. most of the wars are over some

company has hired people to make sure that their interests take precedence over the people of those states. host: niger is no. 19 on the list and is moving down. guest: the caller makes an important point. i'm not sure education from the new and would make a transformation. if you look at resource- dependent economies, they are very highly represented in the upper ranks of the failed states index. that are dependent on just one industry or extraction, whether it's oil and gas or some other commodity. you look at the ivory coast as a good example. many of these countries, unfortunately, there has been a lot of scholarship in recent decades to look at what is called the resource curse. it's the idea of being left with an enormous natural wealth and

that can inhibit the creation of institutions that lead to strong independent nations. it is a well-documented and unfortunate phenomenon. host: frank is on the democratic line from san francisco. caller: good morning. in the late 1950's i emigrated from england to rhodesia, now called zimbabwe. i left because it was apartheid and i went back to england. i have seen a despot in control of that country many years. it is sad that africa when it got independence had to rely on it.pots to control copper is one of the most valuable minerals in the world and it is in great demand. they should be the most prosperous country, but they are not because they cannot manage their affairs.

guest: zimbabwe is one of the great tragedies of modern times. it gets very little attention in the u.s.. robert mugabe has been in power since independence from britain. he has been one of the worst rulers in the world. this is a country that has had many years of negative growth even though they have great natural wealth. they have had an uneasy standoff with the more democratic- oriented opposition over the last several years. there's been a power-sharing arrangement. zimbabwe had an election and robert mugabe lost. but he did not accept the results of losing. unlike others in the ivory coast, he did not go to war. he created a power-sharing arrangement, that has been of a modest success. it is still one of the great tragedies. robert mugabe.

you have to be prepared for the possibility of a transition and not necessarily a peaceful transition. host: the international red cross has declared a civil war in syria. when you go to the pages of your magazine, it's part of a package that looks at the arab spring and its parent 2011 rank is 28. talk about syria and stability. if it was 23 last year on this list, it is likely to go up significantly this year. syria is an important threshold. it is an international definition of civil war that would trigger other international provisions. the bottom line is the world community has not been very successful at coming up with a way to address the spiraling and escalating blood shed inside the country.

people are horrified by the spectacle of bashar al-assad's regime using tanks and other weapons against civilians. the bottom line is he is also facing an armed insurgency inside the country. at this country in the u.s. election year, the bottom line, unfortunately, with russia and china still threatening to veto any stronger action at the u.n. security council, the world once again is on the sidelines watching this kind of a series of ongoing massacres. host: susan glasser joining us. curtis is on our republican line from alexandria, virginia. caller: the dictators or the money. we send them billions of dollars and it never makes it into the programs. the dictators take all the money. we send medicine over there. we send food. they don't let that get to the people. look at nigeria.

internet fraud and scams occurs more from nigeria than any other country world. they target the united states. our elderly are scanned out of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. that's from nigeria. they have a rap group in nigeria and the number one song for the year was from a rap group sang about "ripping off stupid american people of their money." colin powell went over there and was dancing with these people. i don't know if he knew the content not. host: nigeria is no. 14 on the list. guest: something we have not talked about this morning is there's another side to the africa story. while there is the tragic persistence of state failure across much of sub-saharan africa, the flip side is many

economists and specialists at development who are looking at the pockets of economic opportunity and a world see that africa with its rapidly growing middle class and with its growing population and abundance of natural resources and agricultural bounty, they see africa as a new land and region of opportunity in the next few been decades in a way that challenges some of our conventional narrative and the u.s. about africa as a persistent and unchanging basket case. while there are places like that in somalia and central african republic, the flip side is there are countries that are dynamic in the region, that are fast-growing, where you have some of the fastest-growing middle class is in the world. if you can find ways to harness the positive side of this dynamic in africa, if you are looking at not only new markets but the kind of growth we have

seen and lifting it out of poverty of millions and millions of people in india and china over the last decade, there's the prospect for africa over the next two decades. in many of these countries one of the things you will see -- and countries are not monolithic. that is true in many of these african states cobble together with artificial post-colonial borders. there are pockets of stability and even prosperity in even the most unstable countries. in the end, will those be the nucleus of a new and different? kind of different there is somaliland and another area that occupies another large land mass that are relatively stable that are run by breakaway independent governments, two pockets. mini feudal states. that allows the economy to grow

in that part of the country. host: days from hutchinson, kansas, on our independent line. -- dave. caller: callers have emphasized it is scams going on from people in nigeria. this alludes to what our guest said earlier. a lot of these problems stem from a long time ago from colonial times. was zimbabwe,f it but they were encouraged to destroy their traditional crops in order to grow tobacco. colonial powers leaned on them to do that. things like that happened a lot around africa, from what i understand. i think we need to look backwards in history little. thank you. guest: the caller makes an important point. the persistent legacy of history has been strong on africa. it's not just age and history

that affects these countries. it is decisions of u.s. farm policy, for example. it is decisions that they have totally unintended consequences. look at the bone in in mali, which has been one of the most stable, democratic models in africa. mali has suffered a coup d'etat in recent months and suffered a renewed insurgency, including islamist rebels now in the northern part of the country raiding and destroying thousands of years of history in ancient capital of timbuktu. that is in part because of the u.s. and western countries' decision to intervene last year in a civil war in libya, to the north of mali. the rebel mercenaries there came back to their own country and

have not renewed their fighting in a way that has to stabilize the potentially -- has destabilized mali. the publication of this index over the last eight years has helped crystallize the kind of policy debate that is important. what is it about the states at a category -- as a category that affect policy changes? there was a renewed understanding that the consequences of leaving a vast barely government spaces in the world poses a threat to the u.s. national security as well as regional stability around world. that was an inescapable conclusion of the safe havens in afghanistan that has been afforded to al qaeda.

if you look of the presence of those groups in the pakistan border land today, you're left with the conclusion that this is a key part of the instability inside pakistan today. host: the failed states index, the annual publication by foreign policy magazine. secretary of state clinton is on the cover. we will take our next call from manhattan, jane on the democratic line. -- james. caller: thanks for taking my call. i like to ask, what does the united nations do as far as you ninth thing the nation's? you look at africa overall. africa could become a democracy or could become similar to america. by allowing the u.n. to go in there and try to show people as an example a different way of life. the united african states.

why are people killing? when these people get the guns and everything, now all of a sudden they are in control. they want to shoot up everybody. and dictators want everybody to kowtow to them. guest: you hear a persistent theme among the callers, which is where is the sense of? global of these are tragedies and yet there's no body to address them in. a systemic in the truth is the un is not connected to any such thing. it is not setup to do that. around the premise of national sovereignty. for better or for worse, national sovereignty of these countries has meant a seat at the u.n. is in the hands of this or that coup leader.

that freezes into place the persistence of bad governance in these countries in many ways. until you eliminate the bad governance, you are unlikely to solve the big economic problems and very unlikely to move forward in the way the caller suggested. the bottom line is the development is likely to be powered by economic transformation, by the transformation of the world. whether its new information, technology, the ability of farmers in rural africa to use of cell phones to get proper information, there are dramatic revolutionary developments occurring that i do think will affect the political status and standard of living in any of these countries in africa over the next two decades. i am quite optimistic. you do see the tragic persistence of state failure in many countries on top of the list. on the other hand, nothing is forever. for every zimbabwe but seems to have every resource in the

world, yet plunges down and down, you have countries like colombia and a broken the cycle of violence and have moved into a dramatically different position over the last decade. you will see that in africa, too. host: secretary of state clinton is in each. egyptians threw tomatoes at the motorcade. it goes on to say -- talk about what is going on in egypt. guest: egypt is a thorny dilemma for the u.s. and for secretary clinton. the u.s. had shored up the regime of mubarak for the last decades.

we were paying billions and billions of dollars in aid, primarily military aid. largely, then had to do not with this attrition in egypt and as a guarantee that the peace with israel next door would hold, which it has held ever since the camp david accords of president jimmy carter. when the revolt first happened in egypt, that created a dilemma for secretary clinton. we had supported a bar for decades. some in the u.s. government were reluctant. -- we had supported hosni mubarak in egypt for decades. saying that the united states is somehow responsible now for the muslim brotherhood coming to power and in the election as it was. morsi, the canton of the muslim

brotherhood, had been imprisoned. it's highly unlikely that the united states is now propping up a new generation of as long as leaders but they're having a very hard time trying to figure out what to do. there's a delegation that came to washington from the muslim brotherhood and they were well received. that is at the heart of this new thought that the u.s.'s planned backstage. despite the billions of dollars of aid in the world the u.s. has played in egypt, i would say that the story is how little influence the u.s. has in egypt today. host: the cover story deals with secretary of state clinton. could you elaborate? guest: i spent quite some time

working on this piece about secretary clinton. i traveled with her to china. i spoke with white house officials and with many of her aides. there were many expectations that this was potentially going to be a disaster. they had run against each other. we were all waiting for fireworks to erupt over the capital and that there would be fighting. on the one hand, it has not happened. the fireworks never broke out. they have managed to work together much more successfully than anyone anticipated. it was a nasty campaign between the two of them and had openly questioned his qualifications for the job. there was a remark -- an enormous resentment. many of them said they were

unhappy about the appointment of a clinton to secretary of state. fast-forward, and all the one hand the story is that they have gotten along. you have to give them credit for that. on a personal level, they have forged a very personal relationship. that does not mean that anyone in their camps begins to suggest that she is a confidante. that is not the role she is playing. she is not a counselor to barack obama, although she is an advisor. i asked one of obama's top national security advisers what the difference was between hillary clinton and the white house in terms of who is making foreign policy in the obama administration. he said she is the principal implement. i think that tells a lot of the attitude between the two. it is perfectly cordial,

professional, but they do not see her as leading the way. host: vienna, va., on the republican line for susan glasser. caller: the same way that egypt has turned to the muslim brotherhood, libya, and yemen, the arab spring was bad for the united states. these are the same people that we fought in iraq from 2003 until 2011. these are the same people. they were recruited and cents to go in and kill americans. now they are taking power. especially in syria, they're going to become part of the new government now that the assaad regime has failed. these people are dangerous. they share borders with the

georgia, israel, iraq, and they can cause a lot of damage. we fight these fundamentalists again two or three years later. guest: the caller expresses the dilemma that the united states faces thinking about what policy will be and the rise of political islamism is rising across these countries that have been affected of the uprising of the arab spring. is that a good or bad thing? you can make the case either way. it's too early to say. the famous joke about telling richard nixon that the jury is still out on the french revolution, maybe it will not take quite that long to understand what's happening in the arab world today. this is not a moment but a process. host: from the independent line in kentucky. caller: how much do you think that the bipartisan failed

economic policies of the united states and our indebtedness to china undermines our foreign policy? not only in how much china has influence over other countries and how other countries view us as someone who is not really in control of how we are viewed around the world? guest: the caller makes an important point. if you think about it, the viewers of u.s. foreign policy, even the pentagon in recent years, has come to understand that our economic stability and growth is a key part of our national power, if you will. it is a key issue for national security going forward. it affects how the u.s. is viewed and what tools we are able to build to bear. what are the resources we have at our disposal? they are dependent upon that.

if you look at the money we poured into eastern europe of the collapse of the soviet union versus what we are able to offer to the transitioning countries in the middle east, there is a dramatic difference. we had a lot more money available relatively speaking in the 1990's. now we have a global economic crisis and an economic recovery that is anemic. host: this first one cites the lack of property rights and gives north korea as an example. guest: it is a good example and there are extreme apologies about states and why they feel. there are lot of questions about the new ruler, kim jong un. there is a story on the front page of "the new york times" today about girls wearing

miniskirts today. the bottom line is that it takes institution than the rule of law more than just miniskirts to suggest a path of reform. host: mexico, -- new mexico. caller: do you know how much money the united states has spent in the last 10 years on foreign policy trying to influence the rest of the world? thenthe united nations and the united states of nations. i would like to know what would happen if we take all these companies that were shipped overseas because of the tax laws that put a lot of people out of work would solve a lot of problems? people are out of work and starving. the united states is where we should really should get back to focusing on.

guest: this is a persistent theme across the united states political spectrum, a sense that we need to do nation-building at home rather than overseas. i think it's important to note that foreign aid in the traditional sense is very, very, very small portion of the budget. the vast amount of money we spend that could be considered international in any way goes to the u.s. military which is a huge user of resources. the u.s. military has the largest budget by far of any military in the world. the u.s. spends 50% of all money spent in the entire world on a military. when we talk about the chinese rising military, they're not even in the same league. when it comes to spending on its

military, the amount we spend on aid and united nations is just a drop in the bucket. you could eliminated tomorrow and would not solve our fiscal problems. republic host: in line, shirley. -- host: republican line guest: i think what's important -- caller: think what is important is what is going on in mexico. it is a real problem. our government is totally unwilling to enforce our borders. we are just importing chaos into our own country because this is not working the way it's going. you are not talking about it. our government officials do not talk about it, but we're really in trouble with what is going on in central and south america and, and mostly mexico. guest: i'm not sure there was a question there, but mexico has

come on the one hand, been plagued by an escalating violence because of drugs. on the other hand, mexico has a booming economy. while americans may say we see problems coming across the border, the view in mexico is very different to say that this is largely a consequence of the enormous demand for drugs coming from the u.s. side of the border along with the guns and weapons flooding in to fight the war. it depends on where you stand and i think it's important for people to understand there's a very different perspective in mexico when it comes to the reasons for the spiral of violence and drug related mayhem. consequencegative on their own institutional law that we're seeing. it is spreading to other countries in central america, but if you look at this, the

incapable conclusion is that the situation here, as troubling as it is, is nowhere near the scale and scope of the humanitarian, political disasters in africa. host: some of the reasons that colombia is on the list? guest: there is the restoration of a national government that was severely strained by their own ongoing drug war. what you have today is ongoing pockets of instability where this lawlessness rains and you see the after effects of the more nationalized conflict. host: baltimore, md., you are next.

go ahead. caller: why is it that the united states as a free-trade agreement with china? they steal a lot of their resources from africa. why do we not have a free trade agreements with africa that would help their markets become an economic power? guest: i'm not sure exactly what perhaps theng to, world trade organization. we do not give china a special status. it is a full-fledged member of of the world economic community in a way that has led to an enormous boom with trade. host: last call. west palm beach, fla. caller: going back to africa and the failed states, i know the saharan africa is slowly

accepting christianity. i'm wondering what impact the churches are having. are they helping or hurting in any way? guest: that's a very good question. perhaps that could be on another show. that's a big complex. and did various country by country and there is enormous involvement of evangelical and other churches. some of the issues and poverty questions in africa and there has been sectarian tension in countries that are higher up on the list between the christian and muslim parts of the populations. it is not a one-size-fits-all issue. host: any surprises on the list for you this year?

forward to aoking dramatic change at the top, but the story is about the unhappy persistence of state failure. host: this is the cover of "foreign policy" magazine featuring the failed state index. hillary clinton is on the cover. susan glasser is the editor in chief. foreignpolicy.com and there is an interactive map. susan glasser, thank you very much. our regular "your money"segment and we will learn about the number of buildings owned by the government and how they are maintained. first, an update from c-span news. >> members in from the commerce department shows they could their spending and retail businesses for the third straight month making consumers more cautious.

they fell 0.5% in june from may following declines the last two months and it is the first three-month decline since fall 2008. stock futures adding to losses and that the action to the unexpected fall of retail numbers. head of the opening bell, the dow jones futures are down 40 points. the focus of remarks today by the senate number four democrat in prepared remarks saying, "if we can get a good, balance deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share than i will -- then i will be continuing this debate in 2013." she's the head of the caucus campaign arm focusing on the fiscal cliff. you can watch this event live on to o'clock p.m. eastern on c- span -- 2:00 p.m. eastern on c- span3. [video clip]

>> since the war on poverty, lyndon johnson was the best president that looked on poverty issues, spent money about it, and talked about it. richard nixon is the father of minority business development. he established the small business administration and the minority business development sector. "she regularly writes and comments on politics to medication, and african-american economic history. live, sunday, at noon eastern, your calls, comments, and tweets. "indepth" on "booktv" on c- span2.

host: on monday at 9:15, we look at programs in the federal government and their cost and what they do. joining us today, david wise, from the government accountability office and is the physical infrastructure director. what does that title mean? guest: we have 13 functional areas and physical infrastructure deals with federal real property, telecommunications, various other issues dealing with surface transportation, rail, bus, roads, bridges, a wide gamut of areas generally under the rubric of the physical infrastructure. host: your research on certain topics members of congress want to find out more about? guest: like the rest of the gao, most of the work we do is by

request of congress. host: a recent report features a letter that was addressed by thomas harper of the house. what was he looking at? what was the question he was asking you about real property owned by the government? guest: he has jurisdiction over a certain number property issues. what senator carper wanted to find out was about the scope of underutilized property. they wanted to look at the database that was supposed to be a compilation of the property and how it's working and what could be done to potentially improve it. host: the first line of the report says, "the real property portfolio would include almost 400,000 buildings located throughout the country." guest: the scope is staggering.

there are structures including bridges and everything from a one-square block post office in the middle of a big city to a hut along the appalachian trail and everything in between. it is an incredibly diverse and vast portfolio. host: it says there are 3.3 5 billion square feet of space involved. 80% of federally owned. 17% is leased and 4% is managed otherwise. can you give some context? guest: the portfolio is vast, but there have been concerned on an over-reliance on leasing. it is more cost-effective for the government to own properties rather than lease them. host: how much money is used as far as the ownership, upkeep, and central costs? guest: it varies greatly. one problem we pointed out is

that the date is difficult to get a handle on in terms of the cost. what we have found is that, in general, there is not a uniformity in the way the data is compiled as a result it's difficult for the government to have a very firm fix on how much it is spending to maintain these properties. host: as far as maintaining the properties involved, can you describe how the database works? guest: to the government's credit, 10 years ago there was no such data base government- wide. individual agencies were responsible for keeping their own data. there were property-holding agencies. as a result, the government 10 years ago embarked upon an initiative to try and improve the overall management of the federal real property portfolio. every second year, the gao does

a high risk report. in relationship to that, the government estimates process in trying to compile this data into one of very large database. the results are a mixed picture at this point. host: because? guest: different agencies collect data in different ways. they are not working from the same song sheet. they define some things differently. they collected in different ways. some define a condition one way or another. some define they value one way or another. as a result, we found as we went around visiting 26 sites and 180 buildings, we found incredible diversity in the way the different agencies are approaching this. what is the result? the result is that we end up with a very large database in which it's hard to have a handle on the reliability of the data

simply because you have all these different agencies in putting data in different ways that may or may not mean the same things. host: which agencies are mainly responsible as far as who owned the property? guest: we looked at five agencies, the general services administration, the department of energy, the veterans administration, the department of agriculture, and the department of the interior. they account for two-thirds of the federal real property. the department of defense is a large property holder, but there is another unit of the gop focusing on that and saw many issues we did on the defense side of the coin. we focused on the civilian side and those were the five largest of the federal real property land-holding agencies. host: our guest of going to talk about buildings owned by the

government and their upkeep. if you want to asking questions come here is your chance. the numbers are on your screen. tweetn send us a @cspanwj or send us an email. i want to go through one category in two pictures. these were pictures that were showing the database, property listed in excellent condition. the first shot is a house with a roof caved in. can you tell us about this? guest: if this is your plan of reservation, you better look for a plan b. this is in a national park. this has a collapsed roof, as you can see. we asked why the building was

listed in the condition that it is. we did not get a very clear answer. again, this points to the main problem. it's not always clear that because of the fastness and diversity of the portfolio that people who are responsible for going out and providing the data into these reports are able to get out at any point in time. the last time it looked at that building, it might have been ok. it may have been some time until they were able to see it again. the problem is this report has to be done every year. it is only every snapshot in time. it is unclear as to when the roof collapsed. maybe there was a storm and a tree collapsed. this is indicative of many buildings we saw where what we saw in the ground did not match in the database.

in general, the annual cost for a building can be very misleading. in some cases, they report a very high annual cost for building not being maintained. this may have been a result of an inability to get out and actually look at a building and not knowing really what is going on way out in the field in remote areas. in another case was i remember visiting a national park not too far from washington, d.c. there were very small buildings there listed as having an intrinsic value that was much higher than the building was worth. and did not really have any intrinsic value. it is carry on the books as an asset where it really is not one because there's no real value for the building. it could not be sold and no one would be able to buy a.

host: another building listed in excellent condition is this photo. this is a building with part of the exterior wall missing. guest: this is in california. i'm glad we did not get stung by ab, but there were lots of issues with infestation. -- i'm glad we did not get stung by a bee. is clearly building with a condition listed in the data report that was not at all in line with what we saw in the field. host: those that figure how much is spent in upkeep? guest: i can give you a comparable idea. the department of agriculture has a research facility not too far from d.c. and i visited there one day. there were a number of buildings slated for demolition. sometimes they do not have sufficient funding for

demolition. some of the buildings were in very poor condition and said it cost him $180,000 to build -- demolish a modest two-story building. why? a lot of them have a lot of sensitive issues like asbestos. you cannot just knock them down. there are environmental problems and laws that have to be complied with that affect the demolition. a building like that could be considered as an asset when it is a liability. host: the first call from tulsa, okla., on the democratic line. caller: the buildings that they were talking about, federal money ascend into the states. -- is sent to the states. have they kept the money that

was supposed to be used for the upkeep? this is tax is being taken out of our paychecks and they take the federal taxpayers' money. i can they not use that money to help the people? it is our money. guest: in terms of taxes, the whole point that the government is trying to do is look for ways to better manage its real property portfolio and hopefully provide some benefit to the taxpayer. to the administration's credit, they have been proactive and have suggested some property reform that, a fund -- if implemented, could get at some of the issues we have had in the past two rationalize the real property portfolio. so far, these efforts have not

been able to pass the congress so they have not been implemented. i think there is hope that if some of these reform efforts can be implemented that it could be beneficial to the taxpayer. host: on the independent line from missouri. caller: the government and republicans are all just a bunch of hypocrites. recently, "written journal" had on a fellow. i'm a concerned taxpayer and we just spent over $200 million building a new building right there in washington, d.c., for the united states institute of peace yet we have many buildings sitting unused.

yet they talk about saving the taxpayers' dollars and all that, but they just built this new taj mahal-looking building. i asked him what his salary was. host: upkeep on others and building new ones. guest: it's a dilemma on how this works. i do not know the funding specifically for the u.s. institute of peace. i do know that building because it's at the entrance to the theodore roosevelt bridge as you go in or out of washington, d.c. and it is very obvious. the department of state had some involvement with that. , but you make a good point. -- you make a good point. we want to have an attempt were if you have buildings that are on news that we can hopefully consolidate some of the federal

agencies into these buildings and then hopefully reduce the load of the american taxpayer. host: one of the categories is to look of buildings with high operating in costs. one has a an annual operating and scheduledhigh for demolition. guest: it is with the veterans administration in california. it is a problem. we saw a lot of cases with buildings. the veterans administration this ability is still open here, but there are certain buildings are not being used. this is often the case with the veterans administration because many of their campuses are very old and they have a lot of aging buildings. in the case of this one, it was no longer being used and what a good candidate for demolition. however, the building still had to be maintained.

it is still guarded. there are utilities but still needed to be kept up, heating, air-conditioning, and so forth. as a result, there including a fair amount of annual costs. host: this is listed as a vacant warehouse with an annual operating cost of $447,000. guest: i suspect the reason it was higher, a warehouse for fema in texas, and i expect utilities to operate the building were probably much higher due to the he and requirements for air conditioning required to keep that building from totally collapsing. as a result, almost half a million dollars being spent on a building that has been shut down for several years.

host: the issue the money to the agency and then the agency decides how they use it for upkeep and operating costs? guest: it comes out of the agency's overall budget. the more they can reduce their operation and maintenance costs, it's better for them. it comes out of their budget. the agencies have an incentive to try to dispose of the properties. there are a lot of impediments to doing that. before an agency can sell or dispose of a building, there are quite a few regulation that have to be dealt with. for example, before an agency can sell a building, and has to be offered to a state or local agency. there are provisions where it has to be offered to homeless providers and then there are interest from local authorities sometimes i come into play. there are environmental issues that need to be dealt with and it can be a long and arduous

process to actually sell a building. some agencies can keep the proceeds and some cannot. it differs for just about every agency. it's a very complex and convoluted process as it currently stands. host: on the republican line, you are on with david wise of the gop. -- gao. caller: talking about the very large database you have compiled and then you proceeded to say that there is no continuity in the input of the data coming from different agencies under different regulations. what is the purpose of that database? does it serve any useful purpose at all? guest: we did not compile the data base. we just reviewed it. the purpose of the database was to put dylan executive order from the administration that had decided, around 2003, and to tro

bring all the data under one administrative roof. they took all the land-holding agencies and senior officials that deal with the real property and established the federal real property council. at the same time, they established the federal data base. as a result, this is what we have today. as i pointed out a little while ago, you still do have a lot of agencies doing things a bit differently. agencies are an amalgamation of different bureaus that used to be quasi-independent. there are lot of moving parts all going into this. as a result, at this still a

work in progress to try and make this process more uniform. we made a recommendation in our report, actually two. one we made to the administration was to develop a national strategy that would hopefully rationalized the data they need or want to collect and look at what they're trying to accomplish and where they are going. there are some needed elements it is collecting that it is hard for the agency to figure out what is really important and what they can do. it's a major challenge to compile the data. the second recommendation we made was to ask them to collaborate with the other agencies and with the council to try to improve the entire database. like anything else in life, if

you try to do analysis and the foundation of your analysis is not solid, then urinalysis will be difficult. for the property decision makers that are trying to make rational decisions as to what to do with the property, if they do not have good data, it's a big challenge for them to come up with decisions that will make sense, for the overall taxpayer. host: utah on our democratic line. lake city, from salt utah. my brother works at the v.a. hospital in salt lake. he says that the v.a. hospital that half of it is completely empty. we have so many homeless people. wondering why we cannot house the homeless in the empty

parts of the v.a. hospital. guest: it's a great point and some of the homeless providers would be asking the same question. there is a process by which a property has been declared ready for disposal that eventually would be offered to homeless providers. i cannot comment specifically on the veterans administration docility in salt lake because it was not something we reviewed and i'm not familiar with it. the situation you're describing actually could apply to a number of other facilities around the country. i think it's a very good question that the veterans administration and the government that large really needs to take a hard look at. if you do have buildings like this, depending on their condition, the question is whether or not other agencies that may think the property is worth while is how much would

have to go into renovating it, what kind of access is there? there may be environmental problems with the building itself, especially the older ones. we toward a number of other veterans of the ministration facilities and they are in pretty bad shape. the picture we showed a few minutes ago was indicative of that. there are lot of other examples out there of that, but thank you for raising that point. host: this one has a high value. it is owned by a veterans center building in poor condition and the reported value was $1.60 million. guest: that is a good example of the problems we saw in the data. some agencies have different ways of looking at assets in terms of how they do their accounting. they take a look at a building and looked out what it would cost to replace the building.

the replacement value may be $1.60 million. however, the actual value, the market value, may be much different. maybe it is not at all in their relationship to what the building as, as we saw a lot of examples where the property managers in these different locations told us although there were following the guidance according to what they understood that the actual value of the building was not anywhere nearly what it looked like on the books. guest: who was responsible for placing up -- host: who is responsible for placing property values? guest: live look at the replacement value after rebuilding needs to be replaced and then they look out at what it would cost. the doctor will fact is you will

never replace that building and if you sold it, no one would pay $1.60 million for a building collapsing in the middle of a va facility in california. host: augusta, good morning. caller: mr. wise, i'm asking about the roads, tunnels, and bridges. it's no secret we have failing infrastructure problems nationally. do you view this as a national- security issue? guest: that is not really the area that we looked out, but everyone recognizes that we have a lot of upkeep to do in our infrastructure, as you mentioned, roads, bridges, tunnels. the interstate highway system was built quite a long time ago. everyone recognizes that there are serious issues with the

entire infrastructure system. hopefully with a new highway bill does pass, we will be able to address some issues. host: the president wants to see $3 billion from these properties in terms of this passage. what is he seeking specifically? interestingan question, pedro. we were wondering the same thing. we never really got a clear answer as to how they were going to get from here to there. what we did find when we dug behind the numbers. the agencies do seem to be heading towards that figure. the administration had directed 2010-2000's between call to realize savings from a combination of maintenance, selling assets, and other ways. in this case, we are questioning

the methodology that some of the agencies are using to get there. for example, they would say that they're going to demolish a building in the agricultural center here in some states. then we would save this amount of money from demolishing. they demolished it two months but claimed savings for the entire year? that is misleading to the extent that he did not say that money the whole year. or you say the value of the building, like in the case of the va facility being $1.60 billion -- million, they claim the $1.60 million but they sold it for maybe 100 belgian dollars. they reduced their claim of savings because they were looking at market value rather

than the actual value. we sign number of cases like this that really just did not seem to add up. the general services administration was claiming a savings of $120 million moving from leased buildings to government buildings but that would be savings realized over 30 years and they have not moved to get up there claiming it under this particular exercise that they're saving this money in order to reach this goal. we see there are a lot of challenges here and that's part of the reason for our recommendation to really take a look at what they're trying to collect, what they're trying to do come and see what the real value without their for this and see if it makes sense to compile the data they're compiling and were will take them. guest: -- host: are there instances where a value is

higher and sold lower tax guest: the u.s. department of -- and sold lower? guest: it sold for $40,000 because it was remote and tere was no -- there was no market in that location. sometimes, there is a great disparity. host: baltimore, md., thank you for waiting. republican line. caller: my first question was we were not using vacant buildings for temporary housing for veterans and other people. my second question was why do you spend money to air- conditioned an empty building? guest: troopers question, i would go back to my earlier answer. again, if a building a declared

to be in the disposal process, if it gets down past the claims of other federal, state, or local agencies, that homeless providers would have an opportunity to lay claim to this type of building. it has happened over time. facilities have been converted into areas for the homeless. there is one project we came into contact with on the west coast where there has been an arrangement made where there is a certain property with a guarantee that a certain number would be guaranteed for homeless veterans. there is awareness of the issue. how it plays out in the practical sense is much more uneven. as for the air conditioning, there are certain standards that the general services and administration specifies that you do not have to cool it to 68

degrees fahrenheit, but there's a certain level to mitigate damage in case the building will be used again are sold. a certain level of air conditioning has to be maintained. if you are in central texas in the middle of summer, you know how hot it can be. even a very modest amount of air-conditioning, if it is a few hundred thousand square feet, it will add up. host: it is the same for water and electricity in the building? guest: it's possible the water can be turned off, but in order to have air-conditioning, you still need a certain amount of power which needs to be monitored and administered. host: this building is a fire house listed with of the gsa with a 2010 valley reported over $1 million --- value

reported of $1 million and it has not been used in 10 years. guest: that is a department of defense building. it is in pretty bad shape. that is another case in point that the value of that building , on the government's view is that it would cost that amount of money to replace that building for a fire house. that may be what it would cost in downtown baltimore, but in this case you are a long way from the city. it was built to put out fires on that base, but it is now for the most part closed. it was closed down a number of years ago. another issue we found with that particular building and that there is a lot of ground contamination due to the activities going on at the base. what the value of that building? it's difficult to say. the property people we spoke to

doubted the value was anything close to what the federal database specified that it was. it is going to be really hard to find a buyer for it firehouse that has been closed for 10 years on contaminated ground. host: we have an interior shot also. guest: it did not look that much better. we had to wear hard hats. we could only go into some parts. we did not want to get hit with falling debris. but host: massachusetts on the democratic line. caller: i have a comment than a question. is this nongovernment fraud to undermine the tax payers and take away their purchasing power basically to just take the power away from the people? we already have the patriot act to letting the criminals in government just run amok and globalize everything, privatize

everything. habeas corpus has been suspended. where you giving people the false sense we are free when the supreme court says we cannot yell "fire" when is the very courts that are setting fire to the american people and we're the ones that are suffering. host: is there something our guest can answer? caller: where is the rule of law? where is the enforcement? you do business with international criminals and governors -- governments we have been propping up and have been undermining taxpayers with that fraud and abuses. guest: i am understand where you're going with that and i sent your frustration. i hear you. "fraud" as a very specific meeting in the legal sense. the administration is trying to do the right thing. as i think we pointed out in the

beginning of the program, we have an enormous portfolio spread from every corner of the country from hawaii to maine. it is an incredible challenge to try to rationalize and administer this enormous portfolio of nearly 900,000 buildings and structures. while, i think, there are many challenges, the government is trying to attack the problem and has taken some protective measures in terms over looking at different ways to transform the portfolio. people are aware of the problem and they're trying to address it into the right thing for the american taxpayer. host: how did we get to the point where we own so much property? guest: 40% is probably from the

military, bases, housing. departments are widespread. there are lots of department six in billings for the parks. want to start looking into it, it's amazing, the amount of property you see that belongs to the federal government. host: are these just buildings and government-type structures? have everything from a one-square block building to a hut in the appalachian trail to cabins that were built during the depression to put people back to work during the 1930's. everything in between. the department of energy has a great amount of property for nuclear research and other kinds of activity. it just goes on and on. host: to the agencies act as real estate broker? >> some, but not all.

there are 20 agencies that are responsible for managing their property. the general services a demonstration has a large role because of their role is really as the government landlord. there are involved in the federal real-estate portfolio. host: syracuse, new york. caller: i was just wondering because i have not seen a lot of buildings and silos. many of the buildings up towards germany, italy, we still have them and overseas down in vietnam and in the gulf war, desert storm, these buildings are all empty and not utilized by the government.

who is paying for those? why do we still keep them? there are also all the misfiled bases. guest: there are a lot of under- utilized and excess building. you were alluding more to the military side of things. there has been the base realignment and closure act lets specified many locations that have been closed or consolidated. i remember we used to have an air force base and then one day the government woke of and said we really need the be-47's in harrisburg, pa., and you bring up a good point that there's still a lot of work to done both on the military as well as civilian side. host: would it be ok to claim one of the vacant buildings? off of twitter. guest: www.govsales.com.

it will tell you what is for sale. tuesday's something that looks good, you can go for it. there is a government website that wants everything has gone through the process then it is possible to buy government-owned property. it will have the information that provides you with the data to enable you to look into doing that. www.govsales.gov. host: last call. marianna, fla. caller: good morning. i just have a question about with the government taking over the fdic and stuff like that. then they talk the loans and stuff. how do they decide to actually is allowed to buy the loans.

whoever buys them ends up with te properties even though the owner, the people bought it, had the loans in default or anything like that. who do -- how do they decide who is accountable for that? guest: i think your question has to do with loans for government property? i deny quite understand. -- i did not understand. host: off of twitter - guest: i do not know the answers to those questions, but they are interesting. really hoping with the recommendations we have made, pedro, to the administration and

the general services administration that we will be able to get at questions like that as they move forward to try to improve the management of the federal property process. host: did you get a response from senator carper? guest: we presented our information to him and it's up to him to decide what he wants to do. he may have a hearing to talk about it. in terms of the administration, they have 60 days to get back to us with whatever plan they may have to implement the recommendations. the gsa recommendation, they agree with in their working plans -- and they are working on plans. host: we have linked the gao report to our web site. you can also go to their web site, gao.gov. our guest has been david wise, the physical infrastructure director.

that is it for "washington journal." another edition tomorrow starting at 7:00. we will see you then. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> congress is back in tuesday at noon eastern. on their agenda next, the bill providing the whitese